Multi-plane confocal microscopy with multiplexed volume holographic gratings [Invited]

A volume holographic (VHG) grating-based multi-plane differential confocal microscopy (DCM) is proposed for axial scan-free imaging. Also, we briefly reviewed our previous works on volume holographic-based confocal imaging. We show that without degrading imaging performance, it is possible to simultaneously obtain two depth-resolved optically sectioned images with improved axial resolution using multi-plane DCM. The performance of our multi-plane DCM was evaluated by measuring the surface profile of a silicon micro-hole array with depths separation around 10 µm. The axial sensitivity of the system is around 25 nm. Our system has the advantages of multi-plane imaging with high axial sensitivity and high optical sectioning ability. Our method can be used for reflective surface profiling and multi-plane fluorescence imaging. The present methods may find important applications in surface metrology for label-free biological samples, as well as industrial applications.